Chapter 43

This chapter discusses the power of art and the impact it has on people's lives. The excerpt was written by Yuri Lotman, who has written many books on the semiotics of film and other aspects of culture. This chapter explains why a person feels pleasure or can be entertained from seeing a movie many times or reading a book several different times. This can also be said for listening to music over and over again. Lotman explains that works of art are very "dense" and when a person reads a book or watches a movie for the first time, they "skim" over the information, not taking into account all of what was written or seen. Each time we see the film or read the book, we extract more information from it than we did the last time. This is a process that is never ending. Some critics believe that popular art is a much weaker form of art, as it doesn't help people deal with unconscious problems and gain an understanding of what it is to be human. This is opinion based, however Berger argues that elite art continues to be meaningful to people hundreds and even thousands of years after they were created, while most popular art tends to be discarded after short periods of time. When asked whether I would listen to music I know well or music I had never heard before, I believe it would depend on the situation. When I am trying to focus on something I would want to listen to something I already know, but different times I like to look for new music to add to my collection. One movie I've seen more than once is National Lampoon Christmas Vacation. I saw it again because it is extremely funny and it fits in perfectly with the holiday season. I think it got better the more times I saw it because I caught more of the punch lines.